by J. Orlin Grabbe

(continued from Part 38)

The creation of the Fifth Column to deal with
official corruption was necessitated by a confluence of
several factors.

1. First of all, there is the corruption of the Justice
Department itself. One couldn't simply turn over the
fruits of a lot of hard investigative work, involving both
financial and other information, to the Department of
Justice, and expect to see justice done. The Justice
Department is part and parcel of the same corrupt system.
Nowhere is this more in evidence than the theft by
"trickery, deceit, and fraud" (in the words of a federal
bankruptcy judge) of the PROMIS software. The Justice
Department is bent on discrediting, ruining, or indicting
anyone who is harmful to the government's case. The
Department's carrot-and-stick method of operation can be
seen from the following paragrahs found in an affidavit of
Michael J. Riconosciuto (March 21, 1991):

"In February 1991, I had a
telephone conversation with Peter
Videnieks, then still employed by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Videnieks
attempted during this telephone
conversation to persuade me not to
cooperate with an independent
investigation of the government's piracy of
INSLAW's proprietary PROMIS software
being conducted by the Committee on the
Judiciary of the U.S. House of
Representatives.

"[Carrot:] Videnieks stated that I
would be rewarded for a decision not to
cooperate with the House Judiciary
Committee investigation. Videnieks
forecasted an immediate and favorable
resolution of a protracted child custody
dispute being prosecuted against my wife
by her former husband, if I were to decide
not to cooperate with the House Judiciary
Committee investigation.

"[Stick:] Videnieks also outlined
specific punishments that I could expect to
receive from the U.S. Department of
Justice if I cooperate with the House
Judiciary Committee's investigation.

"[Stick #1:] One punishment that
Videnieks outlined was the future inclusion
of me and my father in a criminal
prosecution of certain business associates
of mine in Orange County, California, in
connection with the operation of a savings
and loan institution in Orange County. By
way of underscoring his power to influence
such decisions at the U.S. Department of
Justice, Videnieks informed me of the
indictment of these business associates
prior to the time when that indictment was
unsealed and made public.

"[Stick #2:] Another punishment
that Videnieks threatened against me if I
cooperate with the House Judiciary
Commitee [sic] is prosecution by the U.S.
Department of Justice for perjury.
Videnieks warned me that credible
witnesses would come forward to
contradict any damaging claims that I
made in testimony before the House
Judiciary Committee, and that I would
subsequently be prosecuted for perjury by
the U.S. Department of Justice for my
testimony before the House Judiciary
Committee."

2. Secondly, there is the corruption of
congressional investigative bodies. "We tried in the early
90s to take the evidence to all the appropriate legislative
committees," Chuck Hayes told me. "We ended up with
egg all over our faces." For how do you get members of
the House and Senate to investigate illegal drug-dealing,
arms-dealing, and money-laundering, when many of these
same people are on the take from drug dealers, arms
dealers, and money launderers? Before this route would
work, you would have to first root out many of the same
corrupt members of congress. One way to do this would
be to get them to resign, or to agree to not run for re-
election, by presenting them with evidence documenting
their corruption. (You would also hope for, eventually, an
honest Justice Department, so these same legislators could
also be prosecuted.) Over the past year, a number of
Capitol Hill residents, not to mentioned state government
officials and corporate executives, were visited by a very
large man bearing a package containing 200 to 300 pages
of financial and other documentation. They subsequently
resigned, usually "to spend more time with their families."

3. Finally, there is the general inattention of the
news media, and their unwillingness to do any serious
investigation on their own. The media is often content to
relay the content of government handouts, or to get quotes
from each of two opposing sides. To actually go on a
search for evidence and to subject it to hard analysis is
foreign to them. The New York Times, for example, is not
that keen on pursuing corruption in the Clinton
administration. Nor has the media shown a great
propensity for independent analysis of the circumstances
involving the death of Ron Brown, the downing of TWA
800, or the political funding scandals associated with the
Lippo Group.

The Fifth Column was organized in the matter of a
carefully thought-out intelligence operation. There were
layers within layers. But at heart the Fifth Column is
essentially a mobile computer, and the people who
program it, tend to it, and run it. The computer is very
powerful, necessary to do the work of correlating data
from many sources. The computer must remain mobile to
avoid detection and ransacking by corrupt FBI agents who
are themselves targets of the Fifth Column investigation.
Communication is handled by a variety of methods,
including use of an earth-to-satellite signal.

Bill Clinton's political Gestapo has invested
considerable time and effort in an attempt to trace the
computer-carrying truck. The Washington, D.C. office of
the FBI sent out two cars to Kentucky that were specially
equipped to vector in on a ground-to-satellite signal.
They ran into problems with the local wildlife, however,
including a bobcat who ripped out the interior and panel
wiring in one car. (This bobcat is now alleged to be on
the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.) On another occasion,
hearing that the truck was returning from Little Rock, the
Department of Transportation, along with the FBI and the
Secret Service, for a time stopped and searched every
truck leaving Arkansas on Interstate 40. (Do you ever
wonder why truckers don't love the Feds?) On a third
occasion, someone started a rumour that the truck was
traveling under the guise of Frito-Lay--with the
consequence that every truck departing the company was
stopped for inspection. The only public representative of
the Fifth Column is Chuck Hayes himself.

The pursuit of corruption is a deadly business. I
went to Kentucky and spent a week with Hayes, and his
last statement to me at the airport was: "Watch yourself.
I don't want another Casolaro on my hands." Danny
Casolaro was one of the few journalists Hayes respected.
Hayes and Casolaro had slowly developed a relationship,
and Hayes had become an important source of
information for Casolaro. Hayes had tried to dissuade
Casolaro from going to his final, fatal rendevous. On
August 9, 1991, the last day of his life, Danny Casolaro
said he had arranged a meeting with Peter Videnieks and
Robert Altman to trade them some documents in which
they were interested for further documents regarding the
sale of the modified PROMIS software. Robert Altman
was a former attorney for Bert Lance who became
President of First American Bank after it was taken over
by BCCI. Peter Videnieks was the Justice Department
official mentioned above in Riconosciuto's affidavit, as
well as a former Customs official who had cleared the
PROMIS software for export. The meeting had been
arranged by a covert intelligence operative of the U.S.
Army Special Forces named Joseph Cuellar.

A friend of Danny's had been keeping two sealed
envelopes. According to a signed affidavit (which I will
call the "F Affidavit," for his protection), the friend says,
"On August 9, 1991, I delivered two packets of
documents that I had kept for Mr. Casolaro to him in
Martinsburg, W. Va. . . . Danny had told me that [the]
meeting had been arranged by Joseph Cuellar. That he
was to meet with someone from Sen. Byrds office and
from the I.R.S., plus Peter Videnieks and Robert Altman.
He was to exchange some documents that was to their
interest in order to get more info on Promis. He had told
me that Altman only agreed after he was told papers
would be sent to Robert Morgenthau."

Casolaro was found dead in Room 517 in the
Martinsburg Sheraton Inn about 12:30 the following day.
A person was seen leaving his room shortly before he was
found dead, but the FBI never interviewed the eyewitness,
nor showed her pictures of likely suspects. They were in
a hurry to close the matter as one more "suicide" (much as
in the later case of Vince Foster). Documentary evidence
also shows that Earl Brian, the person who marketed the
PROMIS software to intelligence agencies around the
world, was in Martinsburg that same day. (Brian was
subsequently indicted for, and convicted of, financial
irregularities while he was head of three separate
companies: Infotechnology, Financial News Network,
and United Press International.)

When the Clinton administration came into office,
Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Webster Hubbell
to handle the Inslaw case, as well as questions concerning
Casolaro's death. Hubbell's assistant on the entire matter
was Stephen Zipperstein, who was subsequently
appointed to a position in the U.S. Attorney's office in Los
Angeles, with a mandate to sit on the indictment of Earl
Brian. (Brian was indicted by a grand jury in June 1994,
but the indictment was not made public until September
1995.) That is, the Justice Dept. attorney appointed to
oversee the Inslaw case and the issue of Casolero's death,
was the same person appointed to protect Earl Brian--who
was a principal target of the Inslaw case, and very
possibly a member of the group that killed Danny
Casolero. Hence the old equation: "investigation" =
cover-up.

At the time of his death, Casolaro had computer
printouts and documents he had received from a National
Security Agency (NSA) employee named Alan Standorf.
These included "wire transfers (copies) of monies paid to
Earl Brian and sent to shell companies in the Cayman
Islands and Switzerland that came from accounts held by
foreign agents and governments at the World Bank and
BCCI" (F Affidavit). Some of the documents received
from Standorf "were classified Top Secret and some had
letters SCI [Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence]" (F
Affidavit). Some time after Casolaro's death, Alan
Standorf himself was found dead, having been stuffed into
the trunk of a car at the National Airport in Washington,
D.C.

No, I would say I didn't want another Casolaro on
anyone's hands any more than Hayes did.